Arnold Hano, the longtime Post copy editor who as a teenager wrote the backstage baseball manual, “A Bleachers’ View,” died Oct. 13, his daughter told The Washington Post. He was 99.
The author of such sports memoirs as “Favorite Things” and “Back Story,” the Manhattan-based Mr. Hano came to Washington in 1951 to work at the Post, as a copy boy and as a volunteer sports journalist.
His breakthrough book, “A Bleachers’ View,” was the story of his experience attending countless Washington Senators games as a 12-year-old when the team played at Memorial Stadium. It turned out to be, in the words of Robert Blaustein, a sports editor at the Post, “the first extensive report on baseball in the days before an announcer explained the scoring system.”
Later in his career, Mr. Hano published the book “What is Baseball?”, which was a sequel to “A Bleachers’ View,” and “Back Story: a Sports Illustrated Story.” “A Bleachers’ View” became a hit on the radio and on television.
Mr. Hano published another hard-bound volume, “Back Story: A Sports Illustrated Story,” in 1975. It dealt with some of the toughest issues facing professional sports at the time, such as the struggle of the small-market Senators team to remain in Washington.
After writing those books, Mr. Hano, along with his wife, Lucy Flath Paniagua, became the first couple interviewed for Ken Burns’ “Baseball,” the 1984 television series which found a national audience.
Mr. Hano, who attended Georgetown University, earned his bachelor’s degree there, then briefly attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania.
After working as a copy boy and as a volunteer, he started working for the Post in 1951 as a sports writer and copy editor. He left the Post in 1963 and went to work as an associate editor at Newsweek magazine. He retired from Newsweek in 1979.
Mr. Hano was editor of the Washington City Paper from 1973 to 1983, and continued to write for the paper after that. He retired from there in 1998.
Arnold Clark Hano was born in Philadelphia. He was the first grandchild of William Hano, who founded the I-57 gas pipeline.
In a biography on his website, he wrote: “I came to Washington to study art at George Washington University and became sportswriter for the Post in the summer of 1951 and, later, for Newsweek.
